70 EAMBLES AFTER SPORT. 



as Santa Cruz could produce. Zack was in fine form. 

 " He's fixed em. Yessir, a Britisher lias fixed Ben and 

 Sal. Liquor up, boys, afore we goes into the hash." 

 The Doc. was there of course. He gazed in a cow-like 

 manner on me, expectorated three times in a deliberate 

 manner, put himself outside a cocktail, and left me to 

 pay for it. T kept on paying for cocktails ; I believe I 

 cocktailed every cuss in the town. Then came the 

 dinner. Zack took the head of the table, I being on his 

 left; we eat and cocktailed till things began to look 

 rather "^ mixed'' somehow. The Doc. was very bad, 

 and expectorated thrice on my coat, and called on Zack 

 for a speech. I give that speech as a literary curiosity, 

 as far as I can remember it. '' Grentlemen," said he, 

 "yer know the occasion of this festive gathering. A 

 great man is amongst us. He has come all the way from 

 his island but played-out home to hunt our great 

 American wild beasts. Boys, incredible as it may 

 appear, he is going to leave our institutions, the land of 

 the free and airy sons of the West, to seek again that 

 pusillanimus sile, — the sile of the traitor. Yessir, you 

 air returning to the land of tyranny and the slave ! you 

 have drunk our cocktails, you have seen our gals ; you 

 have played our poker, you have fixed our bars; and 

 when they ask you who we air, tell em we air a high- 

 faluting, catawampous, locomotive race, tell em we 

 kalkilate to whip our weight in cats, tell 'em that we live 

 with the 'possum and the 'coon ! " 



After this beautiful peroration, the judge raised a 

 glass of mint-julep to his lips, and, gazing round on 

 the assembled company, exclaimed, '' Drink to the 

 stranger, cusses," at the same time draining his glass, 

 an example followed by all the cusses with surprising 



